· Public charity
Lincoln Park Zoological Society
Lincoln park zoo is dedicated to connecting people with nature by providing a free, family-oriented wildlife experience in the heart of chicago and by advancing the highest quality of animal care, horticulture, education, science and conservation.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 15 grants below total $361,098 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $500,386 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $139,288 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k1 grant · $9k
- $10k–50k14 grants · $352k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| WCS - CONGO BZV | $48,774 |
| MAD DOG INITIATIVE | $37,830 |
| LATINOS PROGRESANDO | $33,827 |
| OPEN CENTER FOR THE ARTS | $30,959 |
| ORGANIZATION FOR TROPICAL STUDIES INC | $30,775 |
| RARE SPECIES CONSERVATORY FOUNDATION INC | $27,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT | $25,924 |
| BOSTON UNIVERSITY | $24,925 |
| FUNDACION JOSE A BALESEIRO INC | $17,930 |
| NGOGO CHIMPANZEE PROJECT | $16,650 |
| UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY | $16,210 |
| CHIMFUNSHI USA | $14,000 |
| TONKOLILI CHIMPANZEE PROJECT INC | $13,803 |
| UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY | $13,357 |
| ENLACE CHICAGO | $9,134 |
Do your dollars go where the need is?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, then read against the area’s typical level.
Your human-services grants (FY23–23, $15k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty linein the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP; grantee ZIP can differ from where services are delivered.
Which US states your grants reach
Grants abroad, by region — $139k on the FY2025 return
Schedule F, as filed: 3 regions. The IRS asks for region and purpose, not the recipient, so no country or grantee can be named here.
Stated purpose: GRANT FUNDS ARE PROVIDED TO SUPPORT COSTS RELATED TO MUTUALLY-AGREED PROJECT ACTIVITIES, AS DETAILED BELOW: · GRANT FUNDS ARE PROVIDED TO SUPPORT COSTS RELATED TO MUTUALLY-AGREED PROJECT ACTIVITIES, AS DETAILED BELOW:1. RESTORING THE ECOLOGICAL CONNECTIVITY FOR LIONS BETWEEN NGORONGORO CONSERVATION AREA AND THE SERENGETI NATIONAL PARK BY PROMOTING A CORRIDOR OF TOLERANCE TO SUSTAIN THE METAPOPULATION OF LIONS IN THE GREATER SERENGETI ECOSYSTEM.2. SUPPORTING THE COMMUNITY LION CUSTODIANS ("ILCHOKUTI") IN THEIR CONFLICT MITIGATION AND LION MONITORING WORK IN THE NGORONGORO CONSERVATION AREA. 3. SUPPORTING THE LONG-TERM LION MONITORING IN NGORONGORO CONSERVATION AREA THROUGH DIRECT OBSERVATION, GPS COLLARS, TOURIST PHOTOS, RANGER SIGHTINGS, AND ILCHOKUTI DATA.4. SUPPORTING CORE OPERATING COSTS, SUCH AS GRANTEE PERSONNEL AND OFFICE ADMINISTRATION. · GRANT FUNDS ARE PROVIDED TO SUPPORT COSTS RELATED TO MUTUALLY-AGREED PROJECT ACTIVITIES, AS DETAILED BELOW:1. SUPPORTING EXISTING AND NEW LAND PROTECTION EFFORTS THROUGH CERTIFICATES OF CUSTOMARY RIGHTS OF OCCUPANCY (CCROS) IN THE LAKE NATRON AND SIMANJIRO WILDLIFE CORRIDORS (SPECIFICALLY IN LANDANAI, SUKURO, ELWAI, MAKUYNI, AND ENGARUKA VILLAGES).2. SUPPORTING CORE OPERATING COSTS, SUCH AS GRANTEE PERSONNEL AND OFFICE ADMINISTRATION.3. SUPPORTING ANNUAL SALARY COSTS FOR TWO VILLAGE GAME SCOUTS IN SUKURO AND TERRAT VILLAGES.
Stated purpose: GRANT FUNDS ARE PROVIDED TO SUPPORT COSTS RELATED TO MUTUALLY-AGREED PROJECT ACTIVITIES, AS DETAILED BELOW:
Stated purpose: GRANT FUNDS ARE PROVIDED TO SUPPORT COSTS RELATED TO MUTUALLY-AGREED PROJECT ACTIVITIES, AS DETAILED BELOW:
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are actually delivered. Need from public data — U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving. Grants abroad on Schedule F are filed by region, purpose and amount with no recipient name, so they are shown by region and cannot be placed on the country map or matched to a grantee.
Who you back again
Which organizations you funded more than once, and which you funded a single time. Each grantee is matched to its own filings.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +24% since the first grant, against +13% for the ones you funded once.
12 repeat relationships — 8 still active in FY2025, 4 since wound down; 7 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Median revenue growth · since first grant
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2025, 60% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $143k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
First-time = a grantee’s first year in your filing window; renewed = funded in an earlier year too. As a portfolio matures the renewed share naturally climbs — once funded, an org stays “renewable” — so the signal is the years that buck it (a new-grantee intake wave). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as “new.” Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.
Backed again, and grew
- WCWildlife Conservation Society5× · 2021–2025 · $547k · revenue +43%
- OCOpen Center for the Arts4× · 2022–2025 · $167k · revenue +134%
- RSRare Species Conservatory Foundation3× · 2023–2025 · $91k · revenue +345%
Funded once
- AAAMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF ZOOLOGICAL PARKS AND AQUARIUMS INCgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $100k · revenue +83%
- FFOREFRONTgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $29k · revenue +81%
WASHINGTON UNIVERSITYone grant, 2024 · $19k · revenue +13%
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
The map has a center of gravity: the average direction from the rest of the sector toward the organizations the foundation funds — the shape of its giving. Scoring every nonprofit along that direction surfaces the ones that look most like the portfolio. These are the closest matchesthat aren’t grantees — a resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
Lincoln park zoo is dedicated to connecting people with nature by providing a free, family-oriented wildlife experience in the heart of chicago and by advancing the highest quality of animal care, horticulture, education, science and…
The museum's mission statement is: "to discover, interpret, and disseminate - through scientific research and education - knowledge about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe."
Ci works to spotlight and secure the critical benefits that nature provides to humanity.
Wwf's mission is to conserve nature and reduce the most pressing threats to the diversity of life on earth. (continued on schedule o)
The Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) is a world-renowned center for biological discovery and training that is notably affiliated with more than 60 Nobel Prize winners. Research is conducted by full-time faculty as well as hundreds of the…
See Form 990, Part I, Line 1, Description of Organization Mission.
Nature and culture international conserves biologically diverse landscapes in latin america, in concert with local cultures, for the well-being of the planet.
Deliver ecological stability and long-term protection of large-scale wilderness by supporting and empowering local communities.
Inspiring communities to save wildlife for future generations.
We harness the power of plants for humankind and share the joy and beauty of tropical gardening with everyone. fairchild tropical botanic garden is a museum of tropical plants within a world famous, 83-acre designed landscape. it was…
Dazzle africa's mission is to partner with local organizations to provide programs in conservation, education and community development. the organization aims to ensure that future generations are self-sufficient and iconic african…
The mission of the Lowry Park Zoological Society of Tampa a/k/a ZooTampa at Lowry Park, is to rescue, rehabilitate and care for animals.(Expanded mission on Schedule O)ZooTampa creates exceptional personalized experiences that connect…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Organization for Tropical Studies Inc and the most unlike its peers is Wildlife Conservation Society. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 31 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 5% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 13% of the field you don’t fund.
Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.
18 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue from every source. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Counted here: distinct organizations you funded across 2017–2025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 18 of the 24 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile; the rest are funded organizations whose filings we could not track year by year.
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing
Go grantee by grantee — a decade per org, and how each moved after you funded them
A decade per grantee — revenue shaded, your grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
- Who funds Wildlife Conservation Society ↗
- Who funds Open Center for the Arts ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF ZOOLOGICAL PARKS AND AQUARIUMS INC ↗
- Who funds Rare Species Conservatory Foundation ↗
- Who funds Enlace Chicago ↗
- Who funds NORTH LAWNDALE EMPLOYMENT NETWORK ↗
- Who funds Mad Dog Initiative ↗
- Who funds Latinos Progresando ↗
- Who funds ORGANIZATION FOR TROPICAL STUDIES INC ↗
- Who funds FOREFRONT ↗
- Who funds CHIMP HAVEN INC ↗
- Who funds TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds FUNDACION JOSE A BALSEIRO INC ↗
- Who funds BUILD INC ↗
- Who funds BETHEL NEW LIFE INC ↗
- Who funds Chimfunshi-USA ↗
- Who funds BOYS AND GIRLS CLUBS OF CHICAGO ↗
The grantmakers whose grantees overlap with yours far more than size alone predicts. Each orbits closer the stronger the alignment; the arcs between them show where they also fund each other. Here it reads as a tightly interlocked camp — most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · The Chicago Community Trust · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Local Initiatives Support Corporation · National Philanthropic Trust · Network for Good · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. A research starting point: overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization Lincoln Park Zoological Society funds. Left–right is the share of its income from government; up–down is the share from you. Bigger dots raise more. Filter to federal, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Trustees of Boston University — 12% of income from government
Government income is each org’s traced federal awards (USASpending — grants and contracts) plus state payments (open checkbooks) as a share of its total revenue (IRS Form 990); the self-reported government-grant line (990 line 1e) is carried for cross-check: a grantee that reports government grants we could not trace to a source is left off the chart rather than shown as receiving none. An association, not a claim that your grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first — a floor, not a census; state records exist for 9 states, so a grantee outside them shows no state figure (dimmed) rather than a false zero. Federal award amounts are obligations, which can span years, so a single-year share is indicative. 990 filings lag 12–24 months.